Hungarian Heritage Review, 1990 (19. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1990-01-01 / 1. szám
Ujhazy estate, Sirmezo (Hungarian for cemetery), near San Antonio shortly after her arrival. Legally, Helen was s till a minor. Her family decided at a council held in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1858 that she should separate from her worthless, immature husband. A relative was made legal guardian for her and her children in Hungary, and her brother, Farkas, served in a like capacity in Texas. Vilmos Madarász followed Helen to San Antonio in 1860, filed a Petition for Habeas Corpus for custody of the older son, Ladislaus (claiming that she was a unfit mother), lost the case, and returned to Europe. Helen, claiming abandonment, sued for and won divorce in the district court at San Antonio in 1864. She never remarried, refusing again to be subject to the authority of a husband. She began to transact business in her own name in 1869. Economic survival was uppermost on Helen’s mind when she arrived in Texas in 1858 with only $1,000 in capital (which she lent at 12 to 18 percent interest annually). Her first goal, to acquire her own farm and become an independent planter and stock raiser, was realized in 1859 when her brother bought her sons a 221 acre farm on Cibolo Creek in northeastern Bexar County. With capital from her share of an inherited family estate in Hungary, she slowly prospered, although the first decade on the Cibolo farm were plagued with drought, lack of cheap labor, Indian scares and high Civil War inflation. She and her sons, Ladislaus and Louis, were often faced with hunger and survived only through the charity of her family. Helen also earned money by sewing and embroidery work. One of her first commissions in pre-Civil War Texas came from a Black lady. Needless of prevailing social conventions of that time, the young Hungarian noblewoman laughed at the shocked expressions of San Antonians when she and the Black lady shopped together for material in the old Spanish town. Although accustomed to a life of ease, Helen soon put aside her silk dresses and patent leather shoes and learned to sow, cultivate' and harvest in the hot Texas sun. Although opposed to slavery, she was forced to hire house and field help from neighboring planters, and worked alongside them as she attempted to raise crops (despite prolonged drought in the late 1850s and early 1860s). By 1870, Helen sold her farm and moved to San Antonio. Thereafter, her business dealing, mainly buying and selling land and lending her capital, were recorded in Bexar County’s deed records. Her last and longest economic venture, operating a flower nursery, lasted from the early 1880s until her death in 1899. Her prosperous Ilka Nursery was located near the head of the San Antonio River in what is now Koehler Park and the San Antonio Zoo.- continued next page JANUARY 1990 HUNGARIAN HERITAGE REVIEW 17
